Advice from a Tuesday Morning

Most days when I wake up, one of the first things I do is check my phone. This morning I read a series of frantic texts, two missed phone calls and one quick message all having to do with work-related stuff. Years ago, at a far more stressful job than I have now, I learned that when I'm at home, I'm at home. I don't care if there's a dire time crunch which can be heroically solved by no one but me. I'll shrug my shoulders (just you watch me) when i hear there's this gigantic huge colossal meeting tomorrow morning and can you do this one favor for me...

I set my phone down and decided to have a nice morning, instead. (it takes practice, but it can be accomplished) I chatted with my wife over coffee about philosophy and mathematics. I savored my bowl of peanut butter crunch. I petted my dogs on the way out the door and checked on my new (now blooming!) trumpeter vine. I sang along to my music and watched the early fall shadows dance across the road on the way to work. After I clocked in, then I took care of business. Right before the (expected and predictable) phone call from said frantic person, I suggested that there are more important things to life than work. I was polite and brief- and I was appreciated for it.

I feel like my day today has some logical chain linking through the next few emails I received...

This one is from one of my favorite (living) authors, Donald Miller. Miller writes,

"Nearly 80 years ago a psychologist named Viktor Frankl stood up to Sigmund Freud. Freud was saying that the primary desire of man was to pursue pleasure, but Frankl disagreed. He said the primary desire of every person was to experience a deep sense of meaning, and when they can’t find meaning, they numb themselves with pleasure.

Frankl said there are three components of a meaningful life.

Here they are: 

1. A project that demands your attention: Simply have something important that you’re working on that requires you to get out of bed every day. Turns out we weren’t designed to sit and study our belly buttons. We need to find a useful purpose in the world.

2. Unconditional friends: Life is best lived in community and so relationships matter. To experience a deep sense of meaning, we need to surround ourselves with people who love and accept us as we are. We need close, loving relationships.

3. A redemptive perspective on our suffering: Life is full of challenges and sometimes even tragedies. To experience meaning, we must redeem these difficult things by finding a perspective on them that betters our lives. To experience meaning, we can’t let tragedies take us down. We need to redeem them.

If 2015 was another one of those years that felt bland and routine, it’s time to make a new plan. Until we make a new plan and execute that plan, nothing will change."

Next I read from a literary e-magazine I receive:

"Do you feel the creative juices drying up? Has the stress of the day or the week or the “pick your period of time” got you struggling to put down a coherent passage on paper (computer screen)? Never fear because I have just the thing for you. Here are my five cures for those times when you lack the energy to be creative:

1. Free thought time: Find a hobby centered on creativity outside of writing. Get out of the writer head-space, and redirect your creativity to another activity--something that involves a different way to create. Whether it’s photography, sketching, painting, knitting, etc., alternate creative endeavors can give your creativity more depth and distinctiom.
   
   
2. A walk in the woods: Or on a greenway or in a park, walk wherever you connect with nature. Nature can do wonders to reboot your creativity. The crisp air, the smell of the greenery, the thrill of watching wildlife, there are countless ways in the wild to disconnect from hang-ups and kick-start your creativity.
   
   
3. Work it out by hand: Step away from the computer and your normal writing space, grab a pen and notepad, and start writing without judgement. Just let it flow. You will most likely do some of the worst writing you’ve ever done using this method, but the quality of writing isn’t the point. The point here is to clear your mind of all that junk so you can make way for creative excellence.
   
   
4. Meditate: I’m a student of Transcendental Meditation, and I can tell you from personal experience that meditation makes you feel more balanced and less stressed. Sitting in the dark with your eyes closed for 15-20 minutes focusing on nothing is an excellent way to make for a more fertile, creative mind.
   
   
5. Set yourself up to be inspired: A great book, film or play often inspires me to start creating. I find inspiration in the author’s/creator’s talent, and I’m driven to improve as an artist."

Your days are probably hurtling forwards. These months in particular are jam-packed with events and deadlines, due-dates and obligations... When it comes to writing, or working, or just living life- slow down and smell the roses. Enable yourself to be in a place or state of mind, as best you can, so you can enjoy life and relish the sheer gift which surrounds us. I realize I probably sound like a dirty, pot-smoking hippie... but either that's your thing, too or you're like me - and have realized with everything life throws at us, we would rather strive to be happy than rich, accepted, powerful or influential.

Happy Tuesday and Write On!

-Ryan 

Rolling With the Unexpected

The flashing cursor. Just sitting there, taunting me.


As a writer, the only thing worse than flashing cursors is the sudden ADD impulse to get up from my laptop and go do anything else BUT write. Recently, I finished Rienspel and am toying, exploring, doing-battle-with, its sequel The Grey King. At first, of course, I continued with what I had written for Rienspel... because even as it's author, I HAD to know what happened next.

As I've continued this relentless writing adventure, I've learned a bit about my own writing style- and among other things (besides serially over using the em-dash ----), I've learned I don't like to plan things out ahead of time. I don't like it. It's against my nature, and I'll fight you street-brawl-style if you try and make me. I like to just sit down and keep writing- so I get to explore and feel the way out right along with the tale's own characters. Their excitement or terror is my own. I strive for immersive story-telling... plots and people which leap out of the page at you... scenes you can feel and move you... forests where you can smell the trees and land where you can feel the grass under your toes.

With this being said, I also nearly insist on writing with music on... especially if the emotional crecendoes are in-tune with the current scene or characters. When I eventually hit my first creative block by simply trying to continue writing where I had left off after Rienspel I was annoyed, but not surprised. I've learned by now about these pesky writer's block creatures, and I know a few tips and tricks to keep moving after encountering them. One such trick is one I call 'jumping tracks'. To perform Jumping Tracks, you need to identify the specific emotional style, or mood- the type of music or the generally predictable genre pattern you're in, and... Jump Tracks. For example - I obviously write in a specific fantasy-style (in case you haven't noticed from the theme and word usage of my posts here and on Facebook), recently, I decided to listen to classic rock instead of classical or instrumental game music... I opened up a different story stub I had begun and had abandoned some time ago, and started writing it again. And with what I knew needed to happen, generally, in The Grey King, I slowly realized this random story, with this completely different Western-High-Noon-style character gave me a brand new, fresh take on my story- simply by completely changing my ground-level point of view.

Jumping Tracks isn't just for clawing your way out of writer's block pits, though. You can use it while going to a particularly dreaded day at a boring, unfulfilling job, too! (and believe you me, I've had a couple of those before) See, I believe we are all actually characters in The Story. And so, if we are, we just have to Jump Tracks in our current story. The emotional humdrum mood we adopt when heading back into the daily grind is a sneaky version of the writer's block. We're 'stuck' from continuing our own story for an entire shift... or ARE we? Jump Tracks. Use your imagination to refresh yourself and take your situation from a brand new perspective and then go with it... and see where it takes you. You'll often find hidden magic along the way you would have probably never have otherwise even dreamed of.

I used to work at a gas station - and I hated it. That is, until I started trying to jump tracks, at least in my mental frame of mind... but, trying is half the battle in this case. I realized that working for long spells at the gas station made me assume everything was horrible in the world. And of course, anyone can discover with a few days off how simply untrue this is. So, if how I was feeling while working there did not mean what I thought it meant, then it could mean anything... anything! I started trying to identify vampires and revenants hiding in plain sight disguised as regulars! Once, as a joke, I anointed the doors with holy water and, I kid you not, some customers began literally being able to cross the threshold.... I guess my point is, there's a whole wide world we're living in. It REALLY IS magical. And more than a few of the old tales still hold true. We're apart of it, and if we want to continue discovering where our own stories lead, we have to get the ring to Rivendell- we have to seek out Yoda ourselves, we have to try and stop the Nazis from recovering the Ark of the Covenant.

We have to roll with the unexpected, and see our own story through.

-Ryan

thanks for reading!